There is no European region that can be considered as perfectly secured from natural or man-made risks, either originating at national or trans-national level. The risks may result from the direct impact of atmospheric events (windstorms, heavy precipitations, snowfalls, thunderstorms), from their hydrological consequences (plain floods, flash floods) or from geophysical events (earthquakes, subsidence, landslides) and in some cases be worsened or directly caused by industrial activities.
 

Wherever they live, the citizens rightfully expect to get the best available information on the risks that can endanger their life and property, be warned in due time when facing a forthcoming event and be assisted with proper effectiveness during and after the unavoidable crisis.

PREVIEW is an EC FP6 Integrated Project looking for new techniques to better protect European citizens against environmental risks and to reduce their consequences.

PREVIEW provides new or enhanced information services for risk management in three thematic domains:

Atmospheric, Geophysics, Man-made

Supporting European Civil Protection units – local, regional, national and European authorities – PREVIEW draws on the most advanced research and technological developments using satellite observation in combination with other data and scientific models, that help better prevent, anticipate and/or manage different types of disasters.

Some typical services provided by PREVIEW are listed below:

•  New early warning systems to better anticipate short-term risk (e.g. floods and landslides);
• Crisis support services to allow more effective rescue operations (e.g. fire monitoring and rapid mapping);
• Building `risk maps` for different types of hazards, in order to improve prevention and preparedness measures.

In order to allow the user a quick and an easy access to the service platform of interest, PREVIEW web portal has been realized. The operator starts by searching the data and metadata of interest and the system drives him to all available information and services.

Planetek Italia was involved for the development of Landslides Platform.

The platform is based on Open Geospatial Consortium, standard and on Open Source solutions in order to guarantee the data reuse, the interoperability and scalability of the whole system.

The Landslides Platform aims to support the risk management phases (prevention, forecasting, alert and crisis) at a regional and global scale, through the integration of EO data (ERS, Envisat, Quickbird) and in situ data.

The services and the related products provided by the Platform are the following two:

Service 1: Monitoring of slow-moving landslides

•  Susceptibility map
• Measurements of movements [mm/yr]
• Stability map
• 2D/3D Electrical Resistivity Tomography

Service 2: Prediction of shallow rapid slope movements

•  Factor of Safety map
• Soil depth map
• Vegetation Index Map

In order to provide a further added value to the Service 2, a tool that allows the user to manage the alert situations and the related information was implemented. The GeoRSS (Geographic Really Simple Syndication) adds the geographic location information to the RSS data, so it is possible localize the interested area of the event.

The whole WebGIS application, based on  Cart@net , is able to satisfy the classical on-line map consultation requirements (pan, zoom, query) and to process the GeoRSS added information that are necessary for synthesizing and viewing the safety factor over large areas.

The partners involved into the Landslides Platform are:

• - Italian Civil Protection Department
• - Civil Protection and Local Policy of Regione Lombardia
• - Regional Environmental Agency of Regione Liguria
• - Swedish Rescue service Agency
• - University of Florence (Earth Science Department)
• - Research Institute for Idrogeological Protection
• - Methodology Institute for Environmental Analysis
• - Join Research Centre
• – Institute for the protection and Security of the Citizen
• - Swedish Geotechnical Institute
• - Lanmateriet Metria
• - Planetek Italia
• - Telespazio

Learn more about the WebGIS application solution  Cart@net.